"All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible" (1). Throughout his essay, "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell appeals to his audience for sympathy for him and the position he finds himself in: serving the British he hates and opposes while oppressing the Burmese he sympathizes with. He attempts to show his own victimization and that "secretly, of course, I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British" (1). Yet his own subtle racist tendencies taint his seemingly "pure" stance. Orwell struggles with a hatred of both his true enemies--the British--and his supposed enemies--the Burmese--and this emotional uncertainty controls his behavior and actions.
Orwell does admit that he "could get nothing into perspective" (1), but he uses this self-revelation as an excuse for his lack of integrity. He does not believe in the cause of the British, yet by keeping silent and working for Britain, he supports it. He has witnessed firsthand the tortures the Burmese have endured in order to "civilize" them and "all these oppressed (him) with an intolerable sense of guilt" (1) because he knows that he contributes to it by doing nothing. Secretly, he must have felt some satisfaction in his duties, for in the first line of his essay he acknowledges that he is finally "important enough" to be "hated by large numbers of people" (1). Thus he has power over, and a twisted form of respect from, "the evil-spirited little beasts."
Orwell finds it necessary to comment on the race of every person he writes about. He must take notice of their race and perhaps unknowingly places a judgment and worth on each of them according to their categorization. That, then, determines the significance of what happens to them, from the detained prisoners to the unfortunate coolie to the Indian elephant owner. If these people were European rather than Burmese, Orwell might have responded differently to their plights. He might have intervened to save some of the "wretched prisoners"; he might have flown into a rage and killed the elephant over the death of a European; and he might have felt the Indian elephant owner’s loss enough to partially reimburse him or at least apologize thoroughly. He does not even attempt to conceal his animosity toward the Buddhist priests, however, for they "were the worst of all" (1); he "thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts." Although he himself does not like the imperialistic efforts of the British, he cannot tolerate the fact that the Buddhist priests "stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans" (1). He mentions repeatedly their yellow faces as if with disgust. He seems like a person with high ideals and enlightenment, yet this deep ambivalence toward the Burmese betrays his true self. He really does not know who he hates or supports and he cannot choose either side in good conscience.
Orwell, resentful of the British for putting him in such a difficult position, resents the Burmese also because although "anti-European feeling was very bitter," "no one had the guts to raise a riot" (1). He stereotypes the Burmese people, that none of them have true courage, for they will not attempt to oppose the great British Empire, yet they will spit at European women and mock European men. Yet what kind of courage do the British have, including Orwell, hiding behind guns and "authority?" To prove his "courage," Orwell must kill an elephant even though he has no desire to and thinks it wrong. In fact, he equates shooting the elephant with murder. He knows right from wrong despite legalities, but that crowd standing behind him compels him to, once again, compromise his integrity. He could not be laughed at; no, not the big, strong, fearless white man. He places expectations on himself and others on the shallow basis of race. He thinks he must display his undaunting mettle by killing the elephant while he would never expect the Burmese to oppose the Empire due to their absence of "guts."
In this essay, not one of the Burmese is an individual with an identity: they all think and act the same. The only developed character is that of Orwell himself, as if his thoughts alone matter. He stereotypes completely, leaving no room for an exception: "That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes" (1). In other words, not one of the Burmese is trustworthy and capable of realizing and telling the truth. Orwell clearly does not esteem them highly although he claims to sympathize with them. He never writes of a Burmese he cares for and whose individual situation concerns him. The Burmese suffer together; they mock together; they delight in excitement together. Their yellow faces a blur, Orwell does not distinguish one from another. The only caring feelings he expresses toward them arise from their group suffering in prison and under the oppressive rule of the British. Orwell does not attribute any capabilities to them, as if they could not fend for themselves. His support of them stems only out of pity for their hopeless race and out of guilt for "unwillingly" oppressing a people the British should have nothing to do with.
The most striking example of racism in this essay comes from Orwell’s opinion that the death of "a black Dravidian coolie" (2) partially justifies his killing the elephant. However, there was general agreement that "an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie" (4). Certainly no one would ever dare say that about a European. Obviously the narrator also values his pride more than the worth of the coolie’s life:
afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext
for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid
looking a fool. ( 4)
With these disillusioning words Orwell ends his essay. He had to do what the Burmese expected of him as a British officer and not as George Orwell. Goaded on by the excited Burmese crowd and compelled to display his "courage" at the cost of his personal integrity, he loses his resolve and kills the elephant.
If one replaces every "yellow" with "white", every "British" for "Burmese", every "Buddhist" with "Catholic", and every "Indian" for "European", the meaning of this essay changes dramatically. Racial context influences the narrator’s interpretation of his environment and necessary actions greatly. He might have never silently tolerated the abuse of European prisoners the way he did of the Burmese. He would have never killed the elephant because another "fearless" white man could have done it; he would not have projected the racial expectations of others onto himself. He would have never killed an elephant "solely to avoid looking a fool" before two thousand excited yellow-faced Burmese.